


Firebird

by mikeymagee



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, blackinfanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3496181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeymagee/pseuds/mikeymagee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Wilson has been accepted into the SHIELD Academy of Ballet...he'll face many challenges along the way, but none of them will keep him from soaring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firebird

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by this really great piece of fanart:  
> http://temariart.tumblr.com/post/108258425810/as-many-of-you-requested-sam-being-in-the-ballet

Sam Wilson had heard that the first day was always to hardest. That’s what he had expected when he packed his bags for his new school, a ballet academy that sat at the very end of Newark. The Shield Academy for Gifted Dancers.

Even now, as Sam walked through the doors, and into a brand new world, he felt his knees begin to shake beneath him. He had heard of this place. Dancers were ushered in, and drilled with technique after technique. People had called this place the Air Force of dance. Dancers were turned into soldiers…unbeatable soldiers whose weapons consisted of elegant movements and flawless precision. 

To say Sam was a little scared…would be a huge understatement.

The school was huge…but it wasn’t like any dance studio Sam had heard of. Where Sam had expected there to be long dance halls, there were grey walls that seemed to encircle and snare. Where Sam had believed there to be doors to other hallways, were simply locked closets that seemed to delight in fooling others.   
“No, newbie,” they seemed to say, “You don’t belong here. Try again…or don’t. Whatever.” 

This only made Sam feel worse. He couldn’t really get his bearings. Where were the other students? Where were the dorms? Was there any sign of life at this school other than empty hallways?

“Ah…you must be our new arrival.”

Sam turned to see a tall figure looking down at him with…one eye. The other (if it were even there at all) was covered by a black eye patch that stretched all the way from the eye brow to the nose. The man was tall, with a dark complexion that seemed to mirror the very halls Sam now stood in.

“Y-yes,” Sam said. “I-I’m a little lo-“

“Come with me.” The man said, and without so much as a nod, he turned and Sam followed. They walked, step by step. Heavy boots slapping across the tiled floor, filling any empty space they could. Where were they going?

And then they stopped.

“Here,” the man said, pointing to the floor of a smooth dance studio. 

“W-what?” Sam asked.

“I want to see you dance. Now.” 

Right now? Sam looked down to his clothes, his jeans and his shirt far too heavy to dance in. Too unforgiving to yield any leeway for stretching or turning. 

“W-wouldn’t it be better if…”

“Now.” The man said again. 

Sam took a deep breath, and shifted his load from one shoulder to the other. The first day is always the hardest…Sam knew that. 

“Fine,” Sam said. 

He dropped his bag onto the floor, removed his sneakers (far too heavy to dance in) and took center stage.

No stretching to limber his body. No proper uniform to give him the feeling of weightlessness. But none of that mattered to him…he would still fly. 

When he began ballet, he was just a young boy, too young to understand that ballet was not something kids like him should be interested in. No, young black boys needed to be strong. They needed to root themselves into the ground, not lose their heads to the sky. They needed to blend into the soil, and merge with the earth. Basketball, wrestling, heavy sneakers that told the world “You cannot move me.” Root yourself to the ground.

But the ground was never Sam’s friend. No, Sam was a man who soared. He was not meant for the earth. He danced as a young boy, and he learned to fly. He learned to turn like the air beneath the clouds. He learned to jump higher than the stars. Soon, he became a part of the twilight and the dusk. The sky was his home…and no matter how hard the boys at school jeered, or how often his father shook his head in disapproval, Sam would never drag himself back down to the earth.

He no longer had a place there.

Sam stopped…his knees buckling underneath his heavy jeans…was it over? Had he satisfied this strange man?

He looked to the side, and there, the man stood, no hint of emotion on his face.

“You have a lot of power in you.” He walked over and patter Sam on his shoulder. “Despite the limiting clothing and lack of preparation, you still managed to create one hell of a performance. Amazing leaps, strong turns…but the technique is pretty rusty, and the precision needs a lot of work.”

The man turned back to the door, his hands behind his back. “However, you move like no other. Very nice performance…you fly like a falcon.” 

And with that, the man was off (with the same speed and precision with which he came). Yes…the first day was always the roughest…but Sam already knew that.


End file.
